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New England's defense was terrible for 2 quarters, the offense was terrible for 4 quarters. The majority of the blame has to go to the offense this game, and in this case I think it's absolutely fair to put this game on Brady.
I don't think it's asking too much to demand that your supposed top 3 QB of all time hit wide open guys. A bad game is if you can't complete passes in tight windows. If you can't complete the most routine of passes, that has to affect the rest of the team. If he was under a ton of pressure I might agree as well, but for the most part Brady had plenty of time.
The defense was garbage in the 2nd half, but in the NFL these days, very few defenses can shut a team down for 4 quarters. They played very well in the first half, and if the offense executed as well as the defense in the 1st half, it would have been a much larger lead. Baltimore's offense would have had a different gameplan going into the second half, knowing they needed to score multiple times to get back in the game. And then the defense can sell out on the pass since Baltimore couldn't afford to stick with the running game.
New England's defense was terrible for 2 quarters, the offense was terrible for 4 quarters. The majority of the blame has to go to the offense this game, and in this case I think it's absolutely fair to put this game on Brady.
I think you are exaggerating this a bit. He might have missed a couple passes, but even on good days, QBs will occasionally miss wide open guys. If Wes Welker catches that wide open pass on 3rd down, the game could have turned out much differently. If Ridley wasn't stupid and tried to lower his shoulder against a safety known for hard hitting who had WAY more momentum than he did, that fumble and injury probably doesn't happen and things could have turned out differently there as well. The offense as a whole were failing, not just Brady.
IMO, it wasn't so much that the defense was good in the first half, as opposed to awful playcalling. The Ravens weren't running the ball effectively nor hitting short passes effectively, and kept forcing that. The game changed once they started attacking downfield more and making New England respect the pass game. Once that happened, everything opened up.
Again, I don't disagree that the offense and Brady did not do their job well in the first half. But that's exactly why I said that the team as a whole is flawed. They rely too much on their offense. Plus, they still went into halftime with the lead. There is almost no way that the defense of the Pats from 03-05 would have allowed this Ravens offense to dominate an entire half like that.
The Patriots simply are built with too much focus on Brady playing mistake free football. If the team loses virtually every time he has an less than stellar day, that is a flawed team.
I counted at least 5 times where he flat out missed a wide open guy. Not to mention the infamous 4th and 4 where he could have run for a first down but instead threw it to nobody.
Regardless, the team is flawed. They won't win a Superbowl until they fix that defense up. Brady should be the absolute least of their worries.
I don't get the OP. Did the Patriots cheat or something?
Exactly what does the defense have to do with only scoring 13 points and 0 points in the 2nd half? Expecting to win a playoff game by scoring 13 points in today's NFL is totally ridiculous. The defense fell apart but the offense was easily a bigger culprit for the loss.
Points scored by the Patriots in their last 5 playoff exits:
13
17
21
14
14
To say their defense is the biggest reason why doesn't make any sense. The NFL has become a league dominated by passing and offense. No team can expect to win playoff games only scoring 14-17 points, especially when said team's iden y is its pass happy offense led by a HOF QB.
The Patriots are an offense first team with a HOF QB. The iden y of the Patriots isn't a team with an offense that capitalizes on good defense, it's the other way around. If the Patriots' offense needs the defense to set them up with a short field and a low scoring game, it's a much bigger problem with the offense than the defense.
What game were you watching? The Ravens were jamming up the middle of the field the whole game and begging Brady to throw deep and to the outside. The problem being all of New England's receivers are too short and physically inferior they require perfectly precise deep balls in order to catch them. Brady attempted several deep passes where a receiver got behind the defense, the window was just too tight and no receiver on the team is capable of catching balls that aren't perfectly thrown.
Also prior to the Ravens taking the lead, New England squandered multiple redzone opportunities and Welker dropped 2 passes on 3rd down that were both momentum killers. When Welker dropped the 3rd down pass that led to a 21-0 Baltimore run, it was 13-7 with New England punting and it should have been 21-7 with New England driving.
Again, what game were you watching? The Ravens were jamming up the middle of the field. It looked like heavy coverage downfield because it's easy as to cover deep passing attempts from New England.
I agree in the sense Brady didn't play well but I blame this game on a lot more things before blaming him.
Sorry, I just thought Brady was horrendous. Basically every pass Brandon Lloyd caught, he was diving for it. I know Lloyd isn't great at getting good separation, and many times those dives are out of necessity, but I thought most of those plays last night, he should have been getting a pass right between the numbers because he had plenty of separation. If Brady puts it on target, Lloyd has the ability to shake a defender and get upfield. Instead, he has to dive for a ty pass and gets tagged down for an 8 yard gain.
They also allowed an average of almost 26 points per game that they were giving up. Can't win giving up that many points a game either.
I agree that their offense has sputtered at times, but look at their championship runs, they won 4 out of 9 games scoring 20 points or less. Why? Their defense. And that is my point, is that you can't expect to win championship after championship as some people expect the Pats to do, if your defense can't occasionally cover up for your offense not putting many points up. If you are expecting your offense to win a championship almost by itself, you are basically just hoping that your offense gets lucky and has 3 or 4 games in a row of nearly mistake free football, or that your opponent just totally s the bed in 3 or 4 games in a row.
They won those championships by having a good medium between their offense being able to carry the team to wins, as well as the defense being able to carry the team to wins. But the way they are currently constructed, if their offense has a bad day, they are completely incapable of winning, unlike in the past.
IMO, they need to change that iden y and work on their defense.
Perhaps we saw it differently. To me, it seemed they they could have done more adjustment to the Ravens jamming and use tactics such as natural picks to get their receivers open, as well as getting some YAC. Regardless, I think we both agree that the offense was poor this game. But my point is that if they want to have championship success again, they need to have a better defense, and not rely so much on the offense.
They also won games where the defense played like ass, because Brady stepped up. That "dominant" defense allowed 29 points to Jake freakin Delhomme. They won because Brady stepped up and put 32 points on the board.
And even in just 7 or 8 years, offenses have grown exponentially. A dominant defense now is different than a dominant defense back then. Nowadays I think even a dominant defense can't be blamed for giving up over 20 points in a game, because the game is even more tailored to offenses. the Niners gave up 24 points, the difference maker is that their QB stepped up and made plays. More often in today's NFL, if an offense scores less than 20 points in a game, it's due to their ineptness more than defensive dominance.
And also because back from 2001-2004 the Patriots were still a team that had the iden y of elite defense with a ball control offense that wasn't expected to score a lot of points.
So far in the playoffs this year, Flacco has a passer rating over 100 in his 3 games. Kaepernick's passer rating against Green Bay was 91 but his performance was equivalent to a 100+ passer rating when you factor rushing in.
2011 Eli Manning:
129.3 passer rating against Atlanta
114.5 passer rating against Green Bay
82.3 passer rating against San Fran (so his worse passer rating was a 300 yard game with 2 TDs and no picks)
103.7 passer rating against New England
2009 Drew Brees:
125.4 passer rating against Arizona
106.5 passer rating against Minnesota
114.5 passer rating against Indy
Not only is it possible for a QB to play well in every playoff game, it's almost required these days.
Baltimore just gave up 35 points to Indy and haven't played good defense all year. Earlier this year New England scored 30 points in Baltimore. A HOF QB should also be capable of having an 80+ yard drive. You talk about New England as if it's structured as a defense first team with a game managing QB who can't be expected to make plays on his own.
Gronk being healthy definitely makes at least 1 of their field goals a touchdown so they go into halftime with at least a 2 possession lead. It doesn't matter as injuries are part of the game and Gronk's injury isn't an excuse for a lot of what happened.
I agree completely which is why I said you have to have a balance between the two.
This. The NFL in 2004 is much different than it is now. Winning playoff games when the offense doesn't score into the 20s doesn't happen very often regardless of the team. It especially doesn't happen very often when the team's iden y is an elite passing offense and an opportunistic defense that's used to playing with a lead.
Baltimore's defense gave up more points than New England's defense this season. It's not like they're dominant. Brady should have been able to engineer more than 13 points.
They gave up 17 points and 21 points in their last two superbowls. A team with an elite QB that averaged 30+ PPG during the regular season should be more than capable of winning at least 1 of the 2 superbowls with that defensive performance.
No team in recent years has consistently won playoff games scoring 20 points or less. This year, outside of the Bengals Texans game, every playoff game has been won by a team scoring 24 points or more. Playoff games where each team scores less than 20 points rarely happen anymore. Why do you ignore this point?
If you think there's any way in the current day NFL to "work on defense" enough where you can consistently win playoff games scoring 20 points or less, idk what to say.
They had no way of adjusting to the Ravens jamming because all of their receivers are runts who can't handle press coverage. Their safeties were up on every play because they had more than enough time to react if Welker or Branch or Lloyd were gonna go deep.
The defense definitely needs improvement, especially rushing the passer. Chandler Jones had a nice start to the year, but after his injury he was total crap. One ankle injury shouldn't completely shut down your entire game, so I'm led to believe offenses adjusted to him and shut him down, the ankle injury was just a convenient excuse. Hopefully he makes the adjustments and improves his game, as he was looking impressive early on. Still, they need at least one more guy getting pressure on the QB.
I don't think the secondary is as bad as they seem. Of course a guy with an arm like Flacco's will make passes downfield when he has all day to throw it. The only major change to the secondary that has to happen is to get Gregory out of there. John Lynch aside, you can't win with white defensive backs. With McCourty playing free safety it seems logical for Chung to play strong, since that suits him more. Then again, he's just played like no matter what this season, so maybe find a new safety altogether.
Not to sound like a homer, but idk how many times Chandler Jones got held this year. I know holding gets ignored a lot, but a lot of them were holding penalties with an arm wrapped around Jones' neck. Hopefully he'll add strength and learn to start ing at the refs like players who always get held need to.
The biggest problem with the pass rush is no presence on the D-line other than Wilfork who can consistenty draw double teams. Additionally Matt Patricia either is too scared to blitz at all or sends middle linebacker blitzes that don't get there quick enough.
They need a strong safety who can calls plays in the secondary, isn't undersized and can scare offenses (basically bernard pollard). They don't have anyone like that and they shouldn't hope to find an immediate leader in the draft. Their priorities in free agency should be Greg Jennings, Kenny Phillips, and whoever the best interior rushing D-linemen is. If they wanna win another superbowl with brady they need to change their conservative philosophy and start mortgaging the future.
Lol'd at #2
Jets fans already have their offseason wishlist... http://www.forums.theganggreen.com/s...ad.php?t=76632
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